well for animation, its best to just fiddle around with everything, go to window>panels, and experiment with the mixer (colors and alpha) stroke(select different looks for your line and pen tools) fill(create your own linear and radial gradients). also if your looking for a more artsy look with shading and such i sujjest playing around with the paint brush tool, its the best tool there once you know how to use it.
as for buttons, make any text box and go to insert> convert to symbol, and select button from the options, then double clikc that button after youve made it, bringing up the actionscript, go to basic actions and you can select options like play stop and toggle quality, you can do the same thing with a frame , just double click it.
